The Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) has agreed to keep
oil production quotas unchanged, rather than risk damaging the global
economy with a further output cut.

OPEC supplies about 40pc of the world's crude oil. The group will meet again at the end of May to review policy.

In the run-up to yesterday's Vienna meeting, the outcome had been unclear with Algeria and Libya calling for an output cut, and Ecuador, Iraq, Kuwait and Qatar all railing against such a move.

Saudi Arabia had indicated that it would prefer to seek compliance with current quotas before lowering production again. The kingdom has repeatedly stated that it wants oil anchored at a "fair price" of about $75 per barrel.

However, the market has collapsed since hitting record heights of above $147 dollars a barrel in July, slashing the income of OPEC's 12 members.

Oil prices remain more than $100 below the historic heights scaled last summer, and traded at about $45 dollars per barrel on Friday. Analysts said Opec's decision could result in further price falls.

The cartel also said the world economy was forecast to contract by 0.2 percent in 2009 and estimated that global oil demand would drop by 1m barrels per day (bpd) in 2009 to stand at 84.6m bpd.